FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: Vegan propaganda, exercise tones your brain, and the mysterious origins of Trader Joe’s foods

by | Aug 18, 2017

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

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This week vegan propaganda, exercise tones your brain, and the mysterious origins of Trader Joe’s foods.

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7 Responses to “FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: Vegan propaganda, exercise tones your brain, and the mysterious origins of Trader Joe’s foods”

  1. Amanda says:

    I completely agree about the vegan “propaganda.” I see nothing wrong with being vegan, and I have quite a few vegan friends. I do, however, take issue with the claims in “What the Health” and other “documentaries” that take such a firm stance, and ignore data that supports other perspectives. I especially agree with Vox’s analysis of the “gotcha journalism” in “What the Health.” Those cold calls to the Cancer Society and other organizations were terrible. I felt so bad for the receptionists who had to take his calls. And I was appalled that they presented the situation as evidence that these organizations are involved in some conspiracy to hurt people.

    I had a number of friends recommend this movie to me, and I was really disappointed when I watched it. I think it highlights that we should always be skeptical, even when we want to agree with something.

  2. Laura says:

    Did I miss the part of the scientific daily study that actually measured fitness by any other thing other than labs? THAT is the study that would be important, but is impossible to get right because its all self reporting of inaccurate data. What are those people eating and what is there activity? If it is harder to lose weight to original levels once significantly overweight because of metabolism changes, it would be good to study if the people who change their lifestyles but still aren’t as small as they were are the same. If overweight but eats well/active people who are still somewhat over weight but less than they were still have increased health problems, then what is the solution or the point of doing anything about it if being obese has the same risks as being overweight?

  3. Natalie says:

    What The Health was a huge disappointment to me as well. I was particularly alarmed by their awful, irresponsible mishandling of the dangers of consuming sugar. Any diet that promotes the absolute removal of one prozed food group must allow the consumption, without worry, of another. In this case they took away meat and dairy in exchange for sugar. Just plain wrong and dangerous.

  4. Amanda says:

    i see nothing wrong with being vegan. by being so you discover so many heathy things that start prooving your health and push it towards a good health. so its great

    • sarah G. says:

      Amanda, have you ever googled “nutritional deficiencies in veganism” ? I’ve met many former vegans and their stories are eerily similar, they had bad diets as children, felt better on a high veg vegan diet, presumably because they were malnourished and the veggies cured that. Then after 8-10 years there was a decline in health wherein they discovered that they had new nutritional deficiencies low biotin, b12, vit a, iron in some cases, zinc, and gut problems from a high grain /high phytate diet. Basically those are nutrients that are leached out of the body over time and are replenished best via meat and dairy products. The best plan is to either plan on suplementing off and on or to occasionally eat some ethical /humane animal products. I agree…nothing wrong with veggies, but also nothin wrong with some meat all about the balance and, if you care, the sources of those products.

  5. sarah G. says:

    the whole weight vs. heart disease debate is pretty silly when you realize that it is so much more complicated and it seems to ignore the fact that “normal weight” people can have heart disease too!! What about those studies linking a diet low in vit. C to heart disease? The vit c helps to repair the arteries damaged by high blood pressure. Anyway, this is anecdotal but so what, my grandma is 98 has been 40-50 lbs overweight most of her adult life and has no diabetes, no heart disease that we know of, her cholesterol levels are fantastic with high HDL levels and low ldl. The only excercise she gets or has ever gotten is from yard work and an occasional walk around the block. She eats a high veg, low carb low fat diet and is the queen of moderation when it comes to extras like coffee, desert and greasy things. She also doesn’t eat pork, never liked it she says. She does eat other meats. Bottom line: her nutrition has been great her whole life, she’s got all her teeth. My mom (grandmas dtr), on the other hand has dieted and excerciesd hard most of her life, is a fish-itarian and is “normal weight” and has a slew of medical problems, arthritis, osteoparosis, bad teeth, chronic anemia. Mostly I think her nutrition is bad because of gut problems and not getting enough food to eat everyday esp. red meat!

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